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Once you hit the Endgame inPath of Exile II, you might be a little confused as to what to do. I know I was. Looking at the never-ending map accessed from the Map Portal can be a little overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
While it may seem daunting at first, once you start running a few maps and getting to grips with the layouts of each one, everything will fall into place, and suddenly you won’t be able to stop.
Path of Exile II: 8 Best Tips For Cruel Mode
If you’re having a hard time in Path of Exile II’s Cruel Mode, then this list is a must-read!
This guide will go over the most effective methods to create hugely buffed map nodes and get the best loot possible.
Important Map Mechanics
Naturally, once you’ve spent a good bit of time mapping, and completed a good number of the Map Tier Quests, you may be wondering what to do next.
Well, to keep progressing and building up the power of your build, there’s a lot of preparation to do.
First of all, you will need to travel to a new, unblemished area of the Map, preferablya large open area where you can see a lot of lost towers that are close to each other.
This will be your new home until the entire area is cleared out. Before getting into the actual map, you need to understand some of the important node amplifiers first.
Irradiation
An irradiated map is shown bya little yellow symbolthat will float above the map node. Irradiation is pretty simple, but it’s one of the most important mechanics.
Irradiation will add +1 level to the monsters within that particular map node.This increases their health and their damage, but they will also give better rewards and more experience, which is crucial in the endgame.
Irradiation can be force-spawned through the use ofPrecursor Tablets on Lost Towers. These tablets can be obtained as a random drop.
Corruption
Corruption is very similar to Irradiation in that it increases the level of monsters within the node by +1, but in addition, when a group of enemies are killed, they will also have a chance to spawn a bunch of corrupted minions.
What’s different about Corruption is thatit can’t be added to a map.It will only spawn naturally. However, you can irradiate a Corrupted Node, which gives you+2to monster level.
While, of course, this certainly makes things a bit more difficult, you will always want to try and get as many maps corrupted or irradiated on top of the modifiers that we will go over later.
Precursor Tablets and Map Modifiers
If you ever see a Precursor Tablet lying on the ground, try and pick it up as soon as possible. Like Waystones, you can also buff these with Orbs of Augmentation and Transmutation to create amagic tier tablet, but no further.
Foremost, these Tablets can add buffs to Maps, like Irradiation, a Map Boss, or even events like Breaches. If you have a bunch of towers close together, you can add a selection of buffs to the maps within the radius, so you have huge maps that can have one of each event.
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To those attempting Breaches for the first time, our Path of Exile II: Endgame Breach Guide will give you everything you need to crush the horde.
What’s not as obvious, however, is that each Tablet has its own set of modifiers that give certain effects to every single map in the radius of the tower.
These effects can include things likethe increased rarity of items, extra magic monsters, increased pack size, or more gold.
Generally, these are all buffs, so you want to choose which tablet you insert into each tower carefully so you can stack some great effects.
You can also use the Distilled emotions gained from Delirium events to modify your Tablets further for extra customization and improved rewards.
Now, we’ve talked a lot about increasing the effectiveness of each specific node, but there’s also a lot we can do away from the map to improve our experience even more.
At this point, you will know that each Waystone can drop in a different rarity: Normal, Magic and Rare,similar to your gear.
Now rarity affects the amount of modifiers each Waystone can have.Prefixeson the Waystone will give positive buffs likeincreased experience or increased number of shrines,for example.
Naturally, Suffixes will give you penalties, making the Waystone more difficult.Suffixescan include things like,increased monster movement speed, being cursed with elemental weakness or the area having patches of burning ground.
But the more affixes a Waystone has, the more likely you are to find more Waystones in the process. So, while it may up the difficulty, you want to use Regal Orbs on your T15s when you can.This will help you with the Waystone drought that you may have been running into.
Don’t be afraid to use a few Exalted Orbs to boost that Waystone encounter rate, you will certainly find more exalted, or even Divine Orbs while grinding these maps.
Atlas Passive Tree
Finally, the last thing that can dramatically improve our Mapping experience is the Atlas Skill Tree.
Every time you complete one of Doryani’s quests, which says, for example, complete 10 Tier 5+ Waystones,you will gain 2 Atlas Passive Points. By the time you have finished the final quest with Tier 15 Waystones you will have30 pointsto play around with.
Path of Exile 2: How to Reset Passive Skills
Give yourself a fresh start.
Through the leveling process, you want to pick passives that increase the amount and rarity of the Waystones that are dropped. You need as many Waystones as possible initially, so you may sustain the quests.
Here are some good passives to pick at the beginning:
Once you’ve been playing Maps for a while, don’t be afraid to switch up your passives. At this point, you may be drowning in Waystones and are looking for some serious upgrades. You may want to try these Passive Points:
You may have noticed that a lot of these later points focus mainly on rare enemies with increased modifiers. While this is going to dramatically scale up the difficulty of your maps,most of your rewards are going to come from these big juiced-up enemies.
While all of this may seem a bit complicated, once you’ve played up to Tier 15 maps, it will all fit into place. It may seem difficult, but stacking up modifiers and affixes on Waystones and map nodes is anessential part of the endgame, and it’s essential if you want to face the Pinnacle Bosses someday.
If you’re struggling, maybe try looking at your own Passive Tree or your build.There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a little research and shopping on the Poe2 Marketplace.
